Thoughts on the Beloved Community

Wednesday

Jan 30, 2013 at 3:17 PMJan 30, 2013 at 3:29 PM

By Gina Sharpe

In the early 20th century, the philosopher-theologian Josiah Royce first coined the concept of the Beloved Community. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. popularized the term during the civil rights movements and referred to "the beloved community" in many of his speeches and writings. In 1960, Dr. King told the Freedom Riders, "Our ultimate end must be the creation of the beloved community."

Dr. King believed that the cornerstone for the beloved community is love and justice and that the foundation of the beloved community is integration and total relatedness. He saw the struggle to resolve conflicts, rather than the absence of conflict as the fertile ground on which to build the beloved community. He defined love as the binding power that holds the universe together tying us in the single garment of destiny, caught in an inescapable network of mutuality.

We are fast approaching the decision to either fast-forward the creation of the beloved community or face the non-existence of humankind. As students on this path, we know that the beloved community starts inside each one of us. Each one of us must become an activist of the heart. Each on of us has the power to change the world by freeing our own heart-mind. Only then can we initiate change in our community, our country and throughout the world.

This piece was first posted on Gina's blog at www.ginasharpe.org/blog/the-beloved-community. It is shared here with her permission.

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GINA SHARPE has been teaching the Dharma since 1995. After retiring from the practice of law, she co-founded New York Insight Meditation Center. She currently serves as the Guiding Teacher. Trained as a retreat teacher in a joint Teacher Training Program of Spirit Rock Meditation Center and Insight Meditation Society, she teaches at various venues around the United States including Spirit Rock, Insight Meditation Society, Vallecitos Mountain Refuge, Mid America Dharma, Garrison Institute, Asia Society, Tibet House, the New York Open Center, and a maximum security prison for women. She has served on the boards of directors of several not-for-profit and for-profit organizations. Her website is www.ginasharpe.org.